


both shelter and warning

by ShanaStoryteller



Category: The Order (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Memory Loss, Pack, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 01, super healing works except in regards to hickeys and drinking because i said so, the knights are the best part of this damn show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 04:57:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20334448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShanaStoryteller/pseuds/ShanaStoryteller
Summary: Even without context or memories or any idea what's going on, one thing turns out to be true.They all suck at being a lone wolf.





	both shelter and warning

**Author's Note:**

> title is from: "A monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once." — Ocean Vuong, from “A Letter To My Mother That She Will Never Read”, published in The New Yorker

Jack is pretty sure this girl is going to rip his throat out. With her teeth.

“What the _fuck_,” she bites out, hands fisted in his jacket and pressing him against a bookshelf, and it’s a really good thing that the library bolts its shelves to the ground, “is your problem?” 

“I have a really bad memory and I can’t pick a major, my room is really quiet because my roommate went missing, my house is too quiet because my grandfather is dead, and I can’t - I have all these headaches, all the time, and I can’t sleep and I think I’m like, dying, or something, because my whole body hurts all the time, but the clinic just keeps trying to prescribe me anti anxiety medications, and that’s not what I need,” he finishes, not able to stop talking once he’d started. 

Shit. She’s going to like, get a restraining order against him or kill him or something. 

“Well, fuck,” she says, letting go of his jacket. “Have you thought about anti psychotics?” 

He opens his mouth to say yes, he has, but he can tell she’s joking. She’s still scowling, still looks like she wants to rip his throat out with her teeth, but - she’s joking. He’s sure of it. “My insurance doesn’t cover those.” 

“You have insurance? Damn, okay, high roller.” She grabs his hip, pushing him back against the wall, and this time his heart beat ratchets up for an entirely different reason. “Why are you following me? Yesterday at the cafe, and then today, here, now.” 

“I feel better around you,” he says, and then covers his face with his hand, because this is mortifying and ridiculous and just embarrassing in every way. “It all - it’s quieter, in my head, when I’m near you. Well except for this – this ringing I hear sometimes, but the doctors keep saying to turn down my music but – uh, anyway. Sorry. I probably do need to be on anti psychotics or something.” 

“Ringing,” she repeats. There’s a long moment of quiet where he’s waiting for her to punch him, but then she demands, “Wait, are you saying I’m boring?” 

“What?” he snaps, lowering his hands. 

She’s smiling at him. “I’m Lilith.” 

“Jack,” he says, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Jack Morton.”

~

He’d say that he’s not the type of person to jump into things, except for some reason that feels like a lie, but either way it doesn’t matter. He goes from spending most of his time alone to spending it with her, talking and studying and sometimes doing nothing at all, just being near each other. He keeps waiting for them to get sick of each other, but it doesn’t happen. He sleeps easier, everything starts to hurt a little less, and he must be insane, but he doesn’t care. 

Spending time with her is the first time he can remember feeling normal since his grandfather died. 

It’s a Tuesday afternoon when Lilith body slams him into the wall, her typical affectionate greeting, and he’s still laughing when she kisses him. 

He only hesitates a second before kissing back, before grabbing onto her waist and letting her push him back onto his bed, letting her climb on top of him. 

“You sure?” he breathes as she pulls her shirt off over her head. 

She leans down, pinning his arms above his head, and looks him in the eyes when she admits, “I have nightmares, and I’m cold, just - all the time. Except when I’m with you. When I’m with you, I feel warm.”

A grin splits his face and then he’s kissing her. In a life when nothing feels like it makes sense, there’s her. 

They push his bed and his missing roommate’s bed together, and she spends her nights with him. She does have nightmares, but sometimes if he clings to her and runs his hand through her hair, she quiet, and her screams will soften to tears.

“What are you so afraid of?” he whispers in the quiet, while she presses her face into his chest like she’s trying to burrow inside him.

“I don’t know,” she says sounding like she should never sound, as if she’s broken and small. “I don’t know.”

~

“You’re dating Lilith Bathory?” Gabrielle demands two weeks later, in the middle of English class. “Are you planning to like, get her dewormed or anything? You don’t know where she’s been.” 

“Ms. Dupres!” Professor Benson snaps. 

Jack leans back to look up at Gabrielle, a grin pulling at the corner of his lips. “Careful there Gabby. If you talk shit about my girlfriend, she’ll kick your ass.” 

His grin doesn’t flicker even as Gabrielle leans back in her chair and swallows, like she really is worried about getting her ass kicked. Huh. 

Later, with Lilith tucked up against her side as she forces herself to read Jane Eyre and pretend to like it, he asks, “Do you know Gabrielle Dupres?” 

“Who?” she asks, idly turning the page. 

He’s almost certain she’s not actually reading it. “She’s just a girl in my class. She seemed afraid of you.” 

“Must be a smart girl,” she answers, and he rolls his eyes, but he can’t let go of this niggling sensation that something doesn’t fit, that there’s more than his girlfriend’s badass reputation at play here. 

He doesn’t get a chance to probe any further when there’s a crash outside his door, and then a pained a groan. He’s on his feet before he even thinks of it, and instead of yelling at him for moving, Lilith is right beside him as he yanks the door open. 

“Randall! You okay?” His RA is trying to push himself to his feet, but his clothes are sweat soaked, like he’s been running, but it only takes one look at his flushed face and glassy stare to realize that he’s sick. The dark purple bruises under his eyes don’t help either. 

When’s the last time he even saw Randall? It was before his grandfather died, he thinks, but it seems hazy. He heard that the pre-med students were cramming for this big test, but this is ridiculous. 

“Hey - hey, uh,” he squints, and Jack’s pretty sure that it’s less that Randall doesn't remember his name and more that he’s having a hard time seeing clearly right now. “Hi. I’ll just, uh.”

He tries to crawl towards his room on his hands and knees. “Oh my god,” Lilith says, and she and Jack move as one, reaching down to each grab one of his arms and pull him upright. 

“Oh, hey, no - bad,” Randall informs them eloquently, his head lolling against Lilith’s shoulder as they hold him between them. He’s searing hot all over, and Jack almost wants to take him to hospital except just the idea of it makes him queasy, and he can’t say why.

“You’re pathetic,” Lilith says, but she looks worried.

That makes up his mind for him. “Come on,” he says, pulling Randall into his room and helping Lilith lower him into their bed. For a moment he wonders if they should change the sheets or something first, but Randall groans and rolls to the center of the bed, burying his face in Lilith’s pillow and finally relaxing, his labored breathing starting to smooth.

Jack’s hit with a sharp, painful ringing in his ear, and great, now of all times - 

They all flinch at the same time.

Randall doesn’t notice, curling into their bed immediately after, but he and Lilith stare at each other wide eyed. He starts, “Did you-”

“I don’t feel so good,” Randall coughs, and Lilith lunges for his trash basket so Randall can throw up in that instead of on the floor.

He passes out after that, and Jack strips him of his sweat soaked clothes and he and Lilith manhandle him into a pair of Jack’s track pants and one of Lilith’s soft dark shirts. The pants are too big and the sleeves of the shirt are too short.

“I’m just going to grab some of his clothes from his room,” Jack sighs, and seriously, why didn’t they just do that in the first place? Why didn’t they bring him to his own room that was just down the hall? His stomach lurches just thinking of it, so he doesn’t suggest it.

He steps towards the door, and there’s a weak grip on his wrist. He looks down to see Randall’s flushed face tilted towards his, eyes barely open like a newborn kitten. “Don’t… don’t go. I’m… so tired.”

“Go to sleep,” Lilith encourages, and she almost sounds soft, pressing the back of her hand against Randall’s forehead.

“So tired… of being… alone,” he finishes, and passes out again, his head turned into Lilith’s hand.

Jack swallows, looking at Lilith, who’s sitting there frozen. This is crazy. They’re crazy, and they’re going to have to attend a sexual harassment seminar for giving his RA the bad touch. “Move over.”

“What?” she asks, looking towards him, and Jack scoops up her dropped novel and grabs the textbook he’s supposed to be halfway finished with by now.

He gently nudges Randell to the center of the bed, then lays down on top of the covers. He hands Lilith her book, and now she’s boxed in by him and Randall against the wall. “Okay?”

She opens her mouth, and for a moment he thinks they’re going to talk about the incredibly strange thing they’re doing, that they’ve been doing, but then she just nods, takes her book, and lies back down.

Randall sleeps between them, radiating heat but breathing evenly, and Jack tries not to think about how easy this feels, how right.

~

“How much did I have to drink last night?” a high, panicked voice demands. “I’m going to get so fired for this, and then I’ll have to live in a box like a hobo.”

Jack and Lilith groan at the same time. Jack peels his eyes open and sees Randall sitting up and looking in-between them.

Lilith grumbles and rolls onto her side, turning her back to them, but Jack reaches up to press his hand to Randall’s face. “Hey, your fever broke.”

“Fever,” he repeats, face turning a bright shade of red. “Right! Sorry, I’m – I’m really sorry, I’ll go-”

Lilith reaches out and grabs the front of Randall’s shirt – well, her shirt, really – and says, still turned away from both of them, “Stay.”

“If you want,” Jack clarifies.

“Why would I want to stay?” he asks, but he’s still there, he hasn’t run screaming.

Jack shrugs. “I have no idea. But you do, don’t you?”

Randall stares at him, then his shoulders hunch. “Yes.”

“Great.” Lilith tugs at him so he’s lying back down. “Go back to bed. It’s too early.”

Jack raises an eyebrow, but Randall has a smile he can’t seem to control hovering around the corners of his lips, and he turns on his side, facing Lilith’s back.

He hesitates for a moment, but in for a penny and out for a pound, and all that. He presses himself flush up against Randall’s back and curls an arm around his waist, pressing his nose in between his shoulder blades. He waits for a freak out, to be pushed away, but instead Randall sighs and presses back against him. “You going stay all the way over there?” Jack asks.

Lilith stays silently, stubbornly still for a moment, then scoots herself back until she’s close enough for Randall to touch, until he does touch her, pulling her that much closer so her head is tucked underneath his chin and his hand is on her hip.

Should this be making him jealous? Maybe. But his girlfriend is hot, Randall is hot, and for the first time the ache in his bones and under his skin is almost entirely gone. He goes back to sleep, deciding it’s something to worry about later.

~

“Need someone to walk you to class?” Lilith asks Randall, two days after their impromptu sleepover and when he’s halfway out of his dorm into the hallway.

Randall slowly closes his door the rest of the way. “I can’t help but get the impression that you two are stalking me.”

“Does that bother you?” Jack asks, leaning against the wall, willing to let Lilith be the aggressor in this. She’s so good at it, after all.

Randall’s mouth presses together in a thin line, uncharacteristically serious, then it breaks, and he’s throwing an arm around Lilith’s shoulders and dragging her down the hall with him. “Nope!”

Lilith pushes him away, but that ends up just pushing him into Jack, who lifts his arm and settles it around Randall’s shoulders. They walk all the way to his biology class like that, talking about their plans for the weekend, understanding without saying it that these are plans they’re going to have together.

They pause in front of the door to biology, and Randall asks, “Is this the part where give me your letterman jacket?”

“Organized sports and I never really got along,” he admits, then leans down to press a kiss at the corner of Randall’s mouth, so sure that this is what he wants, that Randall is someone he needs, that Lilith needs, but trying not to push him too far or too fast. “I used to make decent money in some fighting rings Pops would enter me into. He called it practice.”

“That’s super fucked up,” Randall says, then he’s kissing him. Jack licks into his mouth and Randall bites his lips and pulls him closer, deeper, until Jack basically has him pinned against his biology classroom’s door.

Lilith coughs, completely unsubtle, and Jack is laughing as he pulls away, as he lets his girlfriend take his place. She jumps up, legs around Randall’s waist and hands pressing into his shoulders, so Randall has no choice but to grab her around the thighs to keep her from falling.

He doesn’t end up making it to biology.

~

Randall bursts into their room the a few days later while they’re studying, running his hands though his hair and pacing. “I have to tell you guys something.”

“If you’re trying to break up with us already, I’ll break your arm,” Lilith answers, not looking up from her notes.

Jack rolls his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been going to philosophy class,” he says.

They wait, and when no more information is forthcoming, Jack asks, “You need philosophy for pre-med?”

Lilith lifts her head. “Isn’t that a freshman class?”

“No, and yes,” he answers. “It’s not about the class. It’s the professor.”

“Hot for teacher?” Now Lilith sounds interested.

Randall rubs at the bridge of his nose, frustrated, and now he has both of their attention. This isn’t like him.

Why does Jack feel so confident in that assessment? They barely know each other. This is crazy, and ridiculous, but Jacks knows he’s right, knows how to interpret the crinkle of Randall’s brow and his fidgeting the same way he can understand Lilith’s silences.

“Just – can you come with me? Please?”

“Okay,” Jack says, overlapping with Lilith’s, “Fine, damn, you just had to ask.”

Randall looks startled, like he hadn’t been expecting it to be that easy, and Jack has to resist the urge to start kissing him, otherwise they’ll never get to this philosophy class to see this hot teacher.

~

Okay, first off, the professor is actually hot.

But secondly, when the professor steps into the room everything feels _right_, Jack hadn’t known how broken he’d felt until he knew what it felt like to feel something different. Lilith lets out a content sigh next to him, and Randall’s eyes are closed, like he’s savoring the sensation. Nothing hurts, there’s no aches or pains or pressure building in his head. It’s the middle of the day and he wouldn’t have said he’s tired, but he could fall asleep right now feeling like this.

“Professor Duke?” someone asks tentatively. “Are you okay?”

The professor is staring at them, eyes wide, frozen in the middle of opening his briefcase. He shakes it off, doesn’t call them out on being here even though he has to know they’re not in his class. “Yes, thank you. Where did we leave off? I’m feeling in a pop quiz type of mood.”

The class lets out a groan, and Professor Duke darts another glance at them, and this time Jack’s looking for it, so he sees it. Lilith makes a move that would be more in line with something Gabrielle would do. She pulls off her sweater, tugs down her shirt and leans forward on the desk, so her cleavage is on display, which is as shocking as anything else that’s happened so far. She never takes off her sweaters when they’re in public. He’s pretty sure it’s less about modesty and more about her body not being for public consumption, which are two different things. Professor Duke swallows but doesn’t react in any other way, and Jack can’t decide if that’s a point for or against him.

They don’t write on the pop quizzes, don’t turn them in, and still the professor says nothing, but when the class is over he cheerfully waves goodbye to the room and then bolts, not exactly running out of there but pretty damn close.

“Huh,” Lilith says softly as the classroom starts to empty out, “Do you think this means that he is like us, or that he isn’t?”

“Like us how?” Jack asks, more out of surprise that she’s mentioned it than out of ignorance to what she’s talking about.

She glares, but gestures between them. “This? Is weird. We’re weird. And I’m not complaining, exactly, the sex is fantastic,” Randall and Jack high five, “but something is going on with us, and whatever it is, he either knows about it, or he’s a part of it, or both.”

“Maybe we were all abducted by aliens and they implanted us with trackers and the only time we aren’t effected by the devices is when we’re all together?” Randall proposes.

Jack and Lilith glance at each other, then she says, “That’s nonsense.”

“This whole situation is nonsense,” he points out, and okay, he has a point there. “So I’m just saying, think about it. Aliens.” 

They do not think about it. 

~

The three of them keep showing up to philosophy class, and the professor keeps letting them, even though they don’t take any notes or do any assignments. 

It’s been two weeks since Randall passed out in the hallway, and he’s practically moved into his dorm room, which Jack doesn’t mind, prefers it to having him further than an arm’s reach away, but the place is starting to get a bit cramped. 

“We could get an apartment?” Lilith suggests, chest heaving as her breath comes back to normal, tilting her head back against Randall’s shoulder. 

Jack wipes his mouth on the inside of Lilith’s thigh then rests his chin on her knee. “I can’t afford an apartment.” 

Randall stops sucking hickeys into Lilith’s neck - and what is it with him and hickeys, Jack’s got one his shoulder and about three on his hips - and says, “Hey, don’t you have, like, a house?” 

He does. His grandfather left it to him, and it’s all paid off, so all he has to worry about is the property taxes. Pops’s life insurance payout wasn’t a lot, but it was enough that Jack shouldn’t have to worry about that until after he graduates, at least. Assuming he doesn’t do anything stupid, like get an apartment he doesn’t need. “It’d be a commute. No rolling out of bed to class.” 

This is _insane_. They’ve only been together a few weeks, he and Lilith a few months, this is absolutely ridiculous. They shouldn’t be talking about moving in together, and the idea of going through his grandfather’s house and turning it into _his _house, into _their_ house, should terrify him, should make him queasy and sick and make the grief claw up his throat. 

But it doesn’t. 

The idea of taking over that big house on his own makes his spine itch. But with Randall and Lilith? It feels right. 

“And I’m an RA for the rest of the year,” Randall sighs. 

“Next year then,” Lilith says, reaching down to grab onto Jack’s hair and tug him up. “That’ll save me money on housing at least. Not that my dad needs to know that.” 

“Extortion?” Jack laughs. 

“Technically, that’s embezzlement,” Randall points out. 

Lilith snorts, “I thought you were pre-med, not pre-law.” 

There’s a beat of silence, like they’re all waiting for something, but Jack doesn’t know what. Then Randall says, voice slightly off, “Right. Not pre-law.” 

Right. 

~

Watching Professor Duke bolt away from them yet again, Jack says, “I really don’t get why he’s avoiding us. He feels it too, right?” 

“Maybe,” Randall begins and Lilith rolls her eyes, “we’ve all been hit with sex pollen and he’s trying to restrain himself from taking advantage of our young and nubile bodies.” 

Jack sighs. “Randall?” 

“Yes?” 

“Stop trying to helpful.” 

He blinks. “I don’t think I’m being helpful.” 

Lilith plucks at her silky tank top before putting her sweater back on. “Maybe if he was doused with sex pollen it would make this easier. You two could do a little bit more of the seducing work.” 

“Are we trying to seduce him?” Jack asks, startled. He wishes they would tell him these things. 

“Maybe try scowling less,” Randall advises. “Although your boobs look fantastic in that.” 

“I don’t know how seduce anyone,” Jack says. 

They both turn to stare at him. “You seduced us,” Lilith points out. 

Oh. Did he? “It was an accident.” 

Randall claps him on the back. “Well, in light of another failure, we could go to the bar?” 

“We all have tests to study for,” Jack says, but doesn’t resist when Randall pulls him to his feet and tucks an arm around his waist. 

When they get there, they arrive in the middle of a bar fight, which isn’t exactly surprising. 

But in the center of it, getting his ass kicked by six other guys, is their hot professor, which _is_ surprising. He’s pretty good, actually, but the numbers are just not in his favor. 

Jack knows how to do this. Nothing else makes sense, but the feeling of some asshole’s nose breaking under his fist is familiar when nothing else is. It only occurs after he’s laid the guy out flat on his back that he’d reacted without checking in with his boyfriend and girlfriend, but when he looks up Lilith is smashing a guy’s head into the table and Randall’s kicking someone else in the stomach. 

The fight is short now, and it’s only a couple minutes later that Randall is poking at their professor’s face and saying, “Damn, I thought for sure I saw them get you, but nothing’s even swollen. Wasn’t he wearing a ring?” 

“He was,” Professor Duke pants, raising a hand to his face and probing it, as if searching for a wound.

“That was fun,” Lilith declares, wiping blood from her lip, “Why don’t we do that more often?”

Jack rolls his eyes and flings his arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, our next group date we can go around town and start bar fights.”

She blinks. “That sounds awesome. Can we really?”

Their professor’s eyes are flickering between them and he takes a measured step away from Randall, away from all of them. “I – I have to go.” He grabs his jacket from the back of chair, hesitates, and adds, “Thank you,” before walking out the door.

“Damn,” Randall says in the ensuing silence.

The bartender waves at them, phone pressed to her ear. “Hey, I’m calling the cops. You guys should leave before they get here.”

Lilith growls, but Jack just waves in thanks before herding her towards the door. “You know what?” she says, turning on her heel to glare at both him and Randall. “Fuck this!”

She runs out the door, and they share a concerned look before going after her. They arrive just in time to see her body tackling their professor to the ground.

“Fuck,” Randall sighs before they go after her. “Lilith, hey, get off him!”

“No,” she snarls, knees around their professor’s hips and pinning his wrists above his head, not unlike the first time she’d pinned him to his bed. “Why are you avoiding us?”

He blinks up at her, then shifts his head to look at them, wide eyed and a flush across his cheeks.

“Oh shit,” Jacks says at the same time Randall goes, “It _is _sex pollen!”

Lilith keeps glaring. “You feel it too, don’t you? It’s easier for you when we’re around isn’t it? If you’re having a mental breakdown over whether you’re going crazy, you can just skip it, we already went through that.”

“I got really sick,” Randall offers, “and I haven’t gotten sick in – years, I think, but I was so sick, until I found Lilith and Jack, and then I got better. Literally, you know, not metaphorically or whatever.”

“I couldn’t sleep, and everything in my body hurt all the time,” Jack tacks on.

Lilith squeezes their professor’s wrist so hard that Jack’s worried she’s going to break them. “I got nightmares. I still do. But they’re better now, and the only time we feel almost normal, almost whole, is when we’re sitting in your classroom. Can you explain that?”

He just keeps staring at her, at them, and Lilith looks ready to start shaking him when he says, “No. I can’t.” He looks up and away from them when he says, “I’m – we can’t – this doesn’t make any sense, and I’m twenty seven, and your professor-”

“None of us are actually enrolled in your class,” Randall points out. “Come on, Professor Duke. Whatever is going on with all of us, clearly it’s better when we’re all together.”

“You don’t have to date us if you don’t want to,” Lilith adds, then shifts her weight. “Although it does feel like you want to.”

He closes his eyes and lets his head fall to the ground with a dull thunk. “Hamish. If we’re – if you’re – my name is Hamish.”

“Hamish,” Jacks says, and it feels like something else slotting back into place, like they’re that much closer to figuring all this crap out. “Do you hear the ringing sometimes?”

“You guys too?” he asks. “Fuck, I need a drink.”

Lilith grins, still pinning him to the ground, and says, “We can take care of that.”

~

Dating a professor is less weird than Jack thought it would be.

They stop showing up at his lectures and do start drinking a lot more. He’s a better bartender than any of the people staffing the actual bars, and he does have an apartment, so they end up there, with room to spread out at his coffee table and curling up in the corner of his couch.

Jack’s not sure if they are dating Hamish or just hanging around him. There’s touching, hands against his shoulders and sitting right next to them on the couch, pressed together from ankle to elbow, but that doesn’t have to mean anything.

It ends up being Randall who bridges that gap. Hamish is leaning over his shoulder, reading something that he’s trying to show him, when Randall turns his head back to look at him, and they’re so close, nearly nose to nose. Jack sees the exact moment that Randall decides to throw caution to the wind and stretches even further back, tilting his head just enough so their mouths slot together.

Hamish freezes, but then he’s leaning in to it, rubbing his knuckles against Randall’s jaw and keeping the kiss slow.

“Is this a private party or can anyone join?” Lilith asks, and Hamish breaks away with a laugh.

He runs a hand through his hair, rueful as he sucks his bitten-red bottom lip into his mouth, then says. “Yeah, fuck it, okay.” He barely gets the last word out before Lilith is kissing him, and Jack goes closer, hovering at the edge, not wanting to intrude, not wanting to demand more than Hamish wants to give, but _wanting_ all the same.

When they pull apart Hamish turns to him and grabs Jack’s face, brushing his thumbs against his cheeks and whispers, “You’re sure?”

“I should be asking you that,” he points out, because it doesn’t matter that Hamish iss older, that he’s a professor, Jack’s the one who’s so desperate for these people, for the fragile beginnings of what he thinks might be a family.

“No,” Hamish says, but Jack can’t figure out what he’s referring to because he kisses him in the next second, lips soft and warm against his own, and when Jack opens his mouth it feels like relief.

~

Hamish is the gentle one.

Lilith and Jack are the rough ones, although she’s easily more dominant than he is, likes being on top, likes holding them down and likes being in control. Randall likes it all ways, likes it every which way, likes having his hands and mouth on them and doesn’t get too hung up on the particulars as long as there’s post-sex cuddling.

But Hamish’s touches are soft, he’s so careful with all of them, treats them like they’re precious, like they’re something to be cherished and protected. He’s dry and sarcastic with a hard edge of what Jack’s pretty sure is self medicating functioning alcoholism, but when it comes to sex he’s so careful, like he can’t bear the thought of harming them or causing them pain, and it’d be frustrating if it wasn’t so sweet. Lilith snaps at him for it, but he only smiles at her in return, and she can’t keep up her irritation for long.

The sex is fantastic. But it’s not just the sex

They all fit, in ways that don’t make sense and shouldn’t work, but do. They all know Lilith’s moods, Randall’s constant affection and excitement, Jack’s stubbornness and his burning need to act, Hamish’s prickly, guarded exterior that only isn’t so guarded when he’s around them. They’re so different and so messed up that they should drive each other to homicide, but instead it just makes them better, makes them stronger, makes them happier.

And if they sometimes hear a piercing ringing that comes from nowhere, that gives them vicious headaches, that no one else seems to hear?

Well, at least they’re together.

~

“You need a bigger bed,” Lilith says to Hamish.

Jack groans in protest as Hamish pulls his mouth off of him so he can glare at Lilith. “Oh, sorry, when I got a queen I didn’t envision it needing to be able to fit four grown ass adults.”

“That’s just poor planning on your part!” Randall yells out from the bathroom, and seriously, how can he even hear them, he has the door closed. “Where’s your mouthwash?”

“Since when do you use mouthwash?” Lilith shouts.

Hamish rolls his eyes. “Probably under the sink!”

Jack clears his throat. “Not to be rude, or demanding, or anything, but you were in kind of in the middle of something.”

Hamish laughs and Lilith says, “Do you ever do anything but bitch?” but she’s also climbing onto his lap and sinking down onto him. She shudders when he sucks on the hickey Randall left on her collarbone, then turns to Hamish. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for class?”

“I should, but Randall’s hogging the bathroom, and also,” he flicks his eyes over them, and Jack grins. So far they haven’t been able to convince him to skip class to stay in bed with them, but he’s pretty sure that’s only a matter of time.

“Guys,” Randall says quietly from the doorway, and Lilith is climbing off him and Jack pushes himself to his feet even as Hamish crosses the room. Randall is deathly pale and wide eyed, his hands shaking as they clutch the bottle of mouthwash to his chest.

“What’s wrong?” Lilith demands.

Hamish grabs his chin tilting it one way then other, like he’s looking for bruises or blood. “Are you hurt?”

“What’s with the mouthwash?” Jack asks. Hamish hits him upside the head, but he’s serious, the way Randall is clutching it is weird.

He tries to force a smile, but it’s kind of painful to watch. “Okay, uh – first, can you all put on some clothes?”

That’s… new, but it’s easy enough for him and Lilith to grab clean clothes out of their drawers and then go back to looking at Randall expectantly.

“Okay,” he says, then takes a deep breath. “This isn’t mouthwash. I – sorry, I didn’t read the label before I used it-”

“Idiot!” Lilith cries, tearing the bottle from his grasp.

“Do we need to go to the hospital?” Hamish asks, “What was it, what did you drink?”

Jack takes the bottle from Lilith’s suddenly slack grasp and reads out, “Memory restoration potion.” What the hell?

“One capful should do it,” Randall says quietly, “and just – don’t – don’t freak out, okay?”

“This is ridiculous,” Hamish protests.

Jack unscrews the bottle, tips his head back, and swallows a mouthful. It looks like mouthwash, but tastes like mud.

“Jack!” Lilith and Hamish shout.

He rolls his eyes and holds out the bottle. “Shut up and drink.”

They both still seem unconvinced, but one more look at Randall’s face has them each taking a sip.

Jack rocks back on the ball of his feet, wishing he’d thought to ask for a chaser because that stuff is nasty, and wondering how much longer they’re supposed to wait. Not that much longer, right? It must have affected Randall pretty quickly –

Oh.

He looks down at his hands, blinking slowly, as if maybe this has all been dream. He thinks maybe he should be more confused, more jumbled, but it’s just – the memories weren’t there, then they were, like flicking a switch.

“Fuck,” he says aloud, then, “I’m going to kill Alyssa.”

“Who’s Alyssa?” Lilith asks, then her face goes entirely, scarily blank, which Jack assumes means he doesn’t have to answer that question.

Hamish presses a hand to his mouth, then sinks onto the edge of the bed. “I – we,” he breathes in deeply, then buries his face in his hands.

Jack’s gut reaction is to go to him, to run his hand through his hair and tug him into a hug, but he pushes it down. He doesn’t know if he gets to do that anymore, if Hamish would want that from him anymore.

“Why haven’t we wolfed out?” Lilith asks, voice blank.

Randall shrugs. “I’m sure we did. We just – forgot, or-”

Fuck. How many people have the killed? Who have they killed? Or maybe it was no one, it had to be no one, if they did turn they surely would have noticed. “Or they suppressed it along with our memories.”

Lilith growls, eyes flashing silver, and it’s so comforting that Jack can’t help smiling, even though everything about their situation is so supremely fucked up.

“I have to go to class,” Hamish declares, pushing himself to his feet. “We’ll talk about this – later.”

“Hamish!” Randall tries, reaching out for him, but he just walks out the door, not looking at any of them.

They sneak glances at each other, not sure where to look, then Jack curses. “Fuck! The house!”

“The sanctuary,” Lilith groans.

“Let’s go,” Randall decides.

There’s another moment of staring at each other, testing to see if any of them are going to be the one to bring up the elephant in the room, and then when no one does Jack says, “Yeah, let’s go.”

~

It’s stripped bare, including the hides and journals of previous Knights, and there’s no one left to be the voice of reason then. The anger and betrayal bubbles over, even for Randall who barely knows Alyssa or the Order, and they end up tearing off their clothes and bounding into the woods, transforming as they haven’t been able to for months and running through the woods just because they can, because the only other option is tearing down their former home in their rage.

They send Hamish dozens of messages about it, but when he responds it’s only to tell them that they all need to take a couple days to recoup, to sort things out before they do anything. Jack can’t help but feel kind of pissed off that Hamish is keeping his distance from them, even if what he’s saying makes sense, because he’s their leader, and he was – is? was? – their boyfriend, and Jack doesn’t want to be _alone_ right now, he’s had enough of being alone to last him the rest of his life.

“Maybe he’s right,” Lilith says, not looking at either of them, “maybe we should just cool down, sort out our shit.”

The shock of Lilith, of all people, suggesting they stand down is enough that he says, “Yeah, okay,” without really thinking about it.

The first day isn’t so bad. He goes to class and tries not to react to any of the Order members around him, tries not to gut them on principle for what they did to him and his pack, and almost doesn’t hate getting his bed to himself.

Midway through the second day, there’s a knock on his door. He opens it to Randall, twisting his hands together and biting his lip. “Look, I’m sorry, I know we’re supposed to be doing some soul searching or whatever, but like, I know what happened was terrible and losing our memories sucked, but I – I liked when we were together, you know, together-together, I think that worked, and I hate my bed now, and if this is like, not working for you, that’s okay too, I won’t be a dick about it, but I just miss you guys so fucking much already and–”

Jack kisses him to shut him up, because otherwise he’ll never get a word in. “I’m sick of being alone too.”

Randall blinks, then grins, stepping into his dorm and kicking the door shut behind him. “I mean, Lilith and I kissed before the Order stole our memories and all, but also now we’ve had sex a bunch without knowing that. Now we have two first kisses. Is that weird?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, slowly pulling Randall down on the bed and on top of him, “_that’s _weird.”

That night Randall is tucked up behind him, fast asleep while he tries to catch up on his English reading, and it’s a lot easier than it had been yesterday when he was alone. His concentration is broken by a pounding at his door, and Randall jerks away and says sleepily, “It’s Lilith.”

Jack pushes himself up and yanks the door open, nearly getting himself punched in the face for his trouble. “Sorry,” she says, “but I can’t find Randall and did he tell you were he was going, he’s not going to do something stupid is he-”

He silently steps to the side so she can see Randall lying in his bed. “Are you calling my stupid?”

She flushes and punches him in the arm. “Shut up.”

“Hey,” Randall says cautiously, getting to his feet.

“Hey,” Lilith returns, eyes shifting between them. “So, it’s whatever, but I obviously like Randall against my better judgement, and you too, also against my better judgement, and that’s – that’s where I stand in all of this. Just so we’re clear.”

“Sounds like we’re all on same page then,” he says.

She pauses, then smiles before forcing it into scowl. “Good!”

“What about Hamish?” Randall asks.

There’s a stretched out moment of silence, and they’ve both already been the brave ones tonight, so he says, “My feelings haven’t changed.”

His memories had been missing, but his feelings were real.

“So,” Randall says, “should we give Hamish space, or?”

“Since when has Hamish ever wanted space?” Lilith asks. “That melodramatic idiot is probably drunk and crying in a pile of his own vomit. Let’s go.”

They don’t even have to knock. As soon as they arrive at the door it swings open, and Hamish leans against the doorway, a tumbler full of something dark and alcoholic in his hands. His shirt is untucked and the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and top couple buttons are undone. His hair’s a mess like he’s been running his hands through it, and the bags under his eyes are so dark and deep that he can’t have gotten any sleep last night. “I believe I said something about everyone giving each other a little space.”

“I believe I said something about shutting the fuck up,” Lilith snarls.

“What she means is,” Randall says, “that we did, and we’ve thought about it and talked about it, and we think you’re wrong and your idea is stupid.”

“Oh, good, this pack is a democracy now,” he says, swirling the liquid around his glass before taking a sip so long and deep there’s no way he’s enjoying it properly.

Lilith smacks the glass out of his hand, and it shatters against the floor. “Hey!”

“The pack isn’t a democracy,” Lilith snaps, “but this relationship is. I don’t know what your fucking problem is, but get over it.” Randall sighs and Jack rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Do you love us, or not?”

Jack’s eyes widen, and even Randall looks surprised. They haven’t brought up love before.

“Of course I do!” he shouts, “What kind of question is that?”

“Not as a Knight,” she presses, “or a friend, or our leader. Just yourself.”

He looks cornered then, in a way that Jack hasn’t seen before, and he hates seeing him like this only because know that Hamish hates being like this, this small and vulnerable. He blurts, “I pledge my life to you.”

“The oath is I pledge my life to the cause,” Hamish says automatically, standing a little straighter, pulling himself back together just slightly.

“I know,” Jack says.

Hamish’s cheeks flush pink.

“If you don’t want us like that, fine,” Randall says, “you’re still our leader, and our friend, and we still love you. But if you do want us, we’re right here.”

Hamish doesn’t say anything, just shifting his gaze between them, then he slams his fist against the side of the door. None of them flinch. “Fuck. I – okay, fucking hell, can’t you let a man wallow at all?”

“No,” Lilith says, leaning up to kiss him and then pushing him aside to walk into his apartment. Randall and Jack do the same, giving him quick, casual kisses as they enter, like they’ve done it a thousand times. Because they have. They all collapse in his living room, and Hamish sighs before closing the door and joining them. “So, what are we going to do about the Order?”

“I have an idea about that,” Jack says. They all groan. “Shut up, I have good ideas. Did you know werewolves are like insanely powerful spell casters? When I blew up that doctor’s office I was just trying to start a fire. And I bet it’s the same for all of you, and Lilith got pretty far in the Order, so she should know the good spells. We all learn a couple of combat spells, then walk in there and take back everything they stole. And anything else we can carry.”

“That’s really more of an end goal,” Randall says, but he looks contemplative. “But if we break in at night or something when it’s not super crowded, that might work.”

“All of our stuff and the hides are going to be kept in their sanctuary,” Lilith says. “We’ll have to get someone to give us the key. Please let me threaten Alyssa into it.”

“Hypnotizing her might be your best bet,” Jack points out, “although there’s not reason you can’t beat her up after we get our shit back.” Whatever feelings he used to have for Alyssa, now he just feels the sharp and bitter sting of betrayal.

Hamish rubs a hand over his face. “We’d need someplace to take it, and we can’t bring it back to the house, not now that the Order knows about it and they’ve done who knows what to it.”

That stings, and to Hamish probably more than the rest of them. It was his safe place for the past eight years, and the Order ruined that for him.

“We can use my house,” he says. “We were planning to move into their next year anyway, right? The basement will make a good place for a sanctuary, and there’s a nook next to a window for the hide chests.”

Everyone is staring at him. “Are you sure?” Randall asks. “I know – with your grandfather and all.”

“He’s dead,” he says, pushing down the familiar wave of grief, “and you’re not. You’re here. We can use my house for all of it, for all of us.”

The smiles that pulls from them make it completely worth it.

“Okay, so we have a plan,” Lilith says, getting to her feet.

“Still really more like an end goal,” Hamish says.

She ignores him. “Enough of this. I’m going to bed. Who’s coming with me?”

“It’s my bed!” Hamish says indignantly.

“Then you better hurry up,” Randall says, jumping over the back of the couch to follow Lilith.

Hamish rubs a hand over his mouth to try to hide his smile, but it doesn’t really work. Jack stand and holds out a hand to him. “Come on. All our problems will still be there in the morning.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he sighs, but pushes himself to his feet so he can grab Jack by the hips and kiss him breathless before dragging him to the bedroom.

Jack can’t bring himself to worry too much. Whatever problems lay in their future, they’ll face them together.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it! feel free to follow / harass me at: shanastoryteller.tumblr.com


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